With a total of 3 objective types (C4 Plant/Defuse, Objective Delivery, and Repair and Escort), Dirty Bomb has a severe lack of variation in it’s game type. When the game is marketed as a “Fast-Paced, Objective Based, Team Centered Shooter” you really should have more objective types (in my opinion anyways).
Since I am a fan of Capture the Flag, I wanted to see how you could develop a push-and-pull type game mode in Dirty Bomb, without it legitimately just being CTF.
Enter: Jolt.
Jolt is a game mode that takes place on a CTF/KoTH type symmetrical map, where the objective of each time is to escort their EV to an end point. The thing is, the EV starts on the enemy side. So the way it would work, is the teams would most likely have a fight at the midpoint at the map, and which ever team wins the fight would run to the enemy’s side and repair the EV. At this point, the team that lost the first fight would have to not only destroy the EV, but also get to the other side of the map and repair and escort their own. This would lead to a constant push and pull between the teams, as you would be busy both destroying the enemy’s EV and pushing your own. The end points would be on opposite sides of the map (edited this part in, because I forgot to explain it lol)
The biggest factor of balance would be the spawn points. Spawn camping would be a pretty effective strategy in this game mode, (in fact it would be the only one that would make sense, when you think about it) since as soon as your team wins a team fight and repairs the EV, you’d have one person pushing the EV while the rest just camp the enemy’s spawn, preventing them from ever destroying the EV or pushing their own. To prevent this, I think their could be different spawnpoints that you have the choice of spawning at. I think this entire gamemode would be centered around the concept of player choice.
Let me explain. At the beginning of the match, everyone on the team would spawn at one spot on the map. That’s where the initial team fight would take place. But once the first EV is repaired, no matter which side repairs it, a dead player would have the option of respawning at certain spots: One closer to the center of the map, one at the midpoint of the EV push, and one at the end of the trail. These choices lead to other choices: Let’s say your team is getting their shit kicked in, and you decide you want to swap to Proxy and go on a heroic mission to repair your own EV and push it to the end. In this situation, you would most likely decide to spawn at the “near-center” point on the map. However, you could also decide to go on a simple flank, killing as many people from behind as possible before you yourself are most likely killed. Another heroic decision, but it also gives your team the opportunity to capitalize on the new man advantage, win the team fight, and destroy the EV. You also have the choice of simply respawning with the rest of your team, trying to win the team fight with brute force.
All these choices culminate to the push-pull nature of the game, as you go from fighting to destroy one EV and at the same time, pushing across the map to escort your own. This gamemode, in my opinion, would NOT be suitable to noobs, or even pubs. It’s a gamemode that would take a level of communication that doesn’t exist in a server browser hop in/hop out environment, or in the randomly assembled gobbledygook of CMM. Teams would have to collectively decide spawnpoints, collectively decide whether to setup for a new team fight after winning one or push to their own EV, collectively decide whether it’s worth sending off one person on a distraction mission or just have everyone there to avoid man disadvantages.
I’m no game developer, so I wouldn’t know how maps and spawnpoints would be specifically setup or how the coding of multiple spawnpoints and multiple EVs would work. I’m sure there are things in here that would just straight not work in a gameplay sense, and I’m sure this kind of gamemode exists in other games (I know it sort of exists in Spec Ops: The Line’s multiplayer but… we like to act like that doesn’t exist), but I was kind of just mind dumping on this.
Let me know your thoughts!
Game Mode Idea: Jolt
This sounds like an overcomplicated game of destroy the enemy base where the EV is the only thing capable of doing it, super freaking fun sounding though, and you addressed many balance conerns as well. I would actually put forth making this a 12v12 (or just bigger than 7v7) type of map and make it HUGE like bigger than old Dome in size. Each team could have a 3 4 player lances, etc. Destroying EVs should also be a bit tougher than 3 arty strikes or one Skyhammer etc, not too tough, but not easily done by one player either 
Sounds awesome! Fits the themes of DB as well!
Bump to get people to comment on this, I wanna see what people think about this.
Cool idea. We’re not looking at adding extra gamemodes just yet, but is cool to see you thinking about it. I’ve passed on some other devs to check out
This looks like Siege mode in Paladins with extra steps and slightly different twists. I never minded that gamemode, but I had to play a “pushmap” kind of mode I’d rather play something a bit more simple that would look more like 5CP in TF2.
Never liked escort-only game modes and never liked KotH game modes. Doesn’t feel very DB-esque and the current merc roster abilities would just make this a huge clusterfuck of spam. You also just generally want the action to start spread out and then concentrate on one point, instead of starting at one point and then spreading out. It’s kinda like… anticlimactic gameplay. I mean maybe people will enjoy it, but I personally wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole
The devs have enough on their plate to worry about before making a new game mode. But even if they did, 5CP kinda modes seem the best. 5 capture points, teams have to capture all 5 in succession.